Teens in France Have Been Leading MAJOR Protests

“Not Marine nor Macron. Not homeland nor bosses.”

On April 23, in France, Emmanuel Macron, an independent centrist, and Marine Le Pen, of the far-right National Front party, were chosen by voters as the top two candidates in the first round of the country’s presidential election, sparking demonstrations in Paris, Rennes, and elsewhere across the country.

As recently as May 1, French students took to the streets for reasons not unfamiliar to other young people in countries around the world: They’re tired of wage inequality, police brutality, racism, and a political system that they believe makes big promises but leaves too many behind. In order to better understand their struggle and the yearlong protests they’ve led across France ahead of the final presidential vote on Sunday, we are here to help explain their positions.

The movement started in March 2016 in protest of the current government.

Since then, students have continued to be at the forefront of many major political struggles in France. They are largely unaffiliated with existing formal political organizations, but feel President Hollande’s Socialist party failed in its campaign promise to help French youth, who have suffered greatly in the economic downturn after the 2008 financial crisis. The administration introduced a law, known as the “loi travail,” or “labor law,” which gave more power to businesses in labor negotiations, making it easier to fire employees or avoid paying them overtime. Faced with this prospect, high school students decided to take matters into their own hands and called for massive demonstrations against the proposed law.

They managed to shut down city streets — and their schools.

High schools all over Paris were shut down by their own students who blockaded school doors, choosing instead to take to the streets in opposition to the government. These massive demonstrations continued almost every day for the entire month of March last year, growing in size and determination, despite often-violent police repression. "Tout le monde déteste la police," or “Everyone hates the police,” became a rallying cry for protesters against inequality, the mistreatment of refugees, racist policing, and government corruption. What started specifically in protest of the labor law expanded to include criticism of the French government as a whole.

They’ve been joined in solidarity by other groups across France.

At the end of March 2016, an occupation known as Nuit Debout was launched in the Place de République in Paris, where students were joined by refugees, factory workers, teachers, anarchists, and many others. At its height, the marches launched by Nuit Debout gathered several hundred thousand people from across the nation. When the labor law was passed in July, the occupation and protests continued throughout the summer and fall, including a massive student demonstration on September 15, the first day of the school year, in which informal groups of students vowed to continue their struggle. (At the same time, France’s powerful unions expressed that they might give up.)

Police violence has informed French protests, too.

In February of this year, Théo, a 22-year-old black man, was raped and beaten by police in a Paris suburb. This launched yet another new wave of student protests against police racism, brutality, and the state. Students again blockaded their schools, demanding justice for Théo and all victims of police brutality. At least 16 high schools were closed as a result.

While these students renounce their current president and both candidates in the current election, they continually posit that the path to a better life cannot be found in any presidential candidate or in any governmental structure at all. Rather, the “Ungovernable Generation” believes that creative, collective solutions, implemented from the ground up, will build a more just, free, and joyful world. In their rejection of Macron along with Le Pen, the students deny both the regressive nationalism of the right (the National Front’s leaders have been accused of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial), and the unwelcome alternative of continuing with the status quo offered by Macron and his predecessor Hollande.

No matter what happens next, they’re likely to fight.

The second round of the French presidential election, from which either Macron or Le Pen will emerge as the new president, will take place on May 7. While Macron is projected to win, the result, of course, is uncertain. What is certain is that these students — who blockade, carry banners, and chant, "Not Marine nor Macon, not homeland nor bosses" — won’t be happy about the result. But they also won’t stop trying to build the world they want to see.